Localisation Of Function Flashcards
What is lateralisation?
The dominance of one hemisphere of the brain for particular physical and psychological functions
What is lateralisation of function?
The theory that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions
What happened to Phineas Gage?
He became fitful, irreverent and socially inappropriate even though he retained most of his cognitive ability
What does damage to the frontal lobe do?
Significantly alters personality and behaviour
What are the limitations of case studies?
Difficulty generalising to the whole population
Ethical issues- not much informed consent
Not much right to withdraw- ppts may feel guilty if they withdraw
What does the central core regulate?
Our most primitive and involuntary behaviours e.g. sleeping, breathing
What does the central core include?
The brainstem and regulates the endocrine system
What behaviours does the central core regulate?
Eating/drinking
what does the limbic system control?
Our emotions
Where does the limbic system sit?
Round the central core
What does the limbic system contain?
The hippocampus
What does the cerebrum regulate?
Higher intellectual processes
What is the outer layer of the cerebellum and what colour is it?
Cerebral cortex- grey
What are the left and right hemispheres connected by?
A bundle of fibres- corpus collosum
What are the 2 hemispheres?
Contralateral
What is aphasia?
Slow and inarticulate speech
What does Broca’s area focus on?
Language production and speech control
If there is a fault in Broca’s area what do you struggle to do?
Form coherent sentences
What is Wernicke’s area focused on?
Language comprehension
If there is a fault in Wernicke’s area what happens?
Produce fluent but meaningless sentences
What is the evidence for LOF? (Maguire)
Maguire et al (2000)- spatial navigation is localised to the posterior hippocampus via analysis of MRI scans
Phineas Gage- evidence for LOF?
Personality changes to damage in the frontal lobe
Evidence for LOF?
Peterson et al
PET scans show that Broca’s area is active when reading
Wernicke’s area is active when listening
Strengths of LOF techniques?
Techniques used are objective and clinical - procedure can be replicated
\therefore high validity
Limitations of LOF?
Lashley (1950)
Researched rats which had parts of their cortex removed
Concluded that cognitive functions are shared across the cortex holistically- rather than localised to one function
